UX Design Manager

Job Description

About Foreground

Foreground is a platform of products that connects families and individuals with world-class photographers. The Foreground family of brands helps photographers and photo consumers create memories that last a lifetime by giving them access to tremendous software, professional services, supportive education and high quality photo products and custom gifts.

The Role

We believe our work should have a profound impact on our customers daily lives. We always start with the “Why” and use that as the foundation for the experiences we craft. It is our job to challenge the status quo and constantly find ways to expand our sphere of influence and expectations of what we can achieve.

As Manager of UX Design, your purpose in life is to find ways to pursue what matters most while marrying your approach with achieving business outcomes. We are starting on a journey to bring several different business lines together into a cohesive ecosystem of apps, and we need a design leader to help define and drive this future ecosystem experience while mitigating complexity. This role would inspire the design team, and others, to push the limits of what’s possible in order to craft beautiful, innovative, intuitive experiences that our customers will love.

A “typical” day as the Design Team Manager might include:

• Conduct regular 1:1 meetings with direct reports to support their career development, including making sure each have an individual growth plan to realize their full potential.
• Define and drive the UX design team’s initiatives and roadmap across an ecosystem of products.
• Forecast resource needs and provide justification for growing the team to provide necessary capabilities and expertise.
• Define/manage OKRs and KPIs for the UX Design team with the guidance from UX leadership.
• Hire, evaluate, and supervise a team of passionate and engaged UX designers, developing individuals skillsets through guidance, mentorship, and training as necessary.
• Improve team efficiency by actively seeking out impediments, be it tools/process/other, and implementing solutions to unblock the team.
• Provide clear, direct feedback to their direct reports, their own manager, and others in the company when needed.
• Working with other leaders to define a larger vision and how we achieve that through iterative updates over time.
• Identify opportunities and work with the product organization to prioritize both new feature work and improving the existing experience.
• Set the standard for execution and operational excellence by constantly looking for ways to improve our methods, techniques, deliverables, and evaluation criteria.
• Build alignment on implementing cohesive, inclusive, well-informed experiences through strong working relationships with other leaders around the company.

This job might be a great fit for you if:

• You are a clear communicator. You can command the attention of a room, not by being the loudest voice, but by others valuing and seeking your objective insights. You have excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal, and analytical skills allowing you to communicate complex concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization.
• You believe in solving the right problem. You have a strong desire to understand a problem space. Your favorite word is “why”. You always dig deeper into a problem to ensure we’re not solutioning for a symptom of a different problem.
• You inspire innovation. You know good ideas can come from anywhere and have an interest cultivating them. You’re enthusiastic about collaboration, have a vision for the future, inspire others to have the courage to pursue forward-thinking, strategic UX solutions.
• You keep an eye on the big picture. You grasp the need to deliver on near term needs, while planning for and informing longer term strategy. You know how to set goals and motivate others to reach them while tracking to the “north star”.
• You lead by respect and trust . You’re not a “bull in a china shop” and you don’t lead by using your title to make things happen. You listen to others, dig for information, make informed decisions and that is why people consider you a leader and follow your direction.
• You make decisions with data. Your gut takes a backseat in your decision making process because you’re always looking for ways to ensure your decisions, and others around you, are based on data. You also have the ability to realize when teams are getting stuck in “analysis paralysis” and have the ability to help them overcome it.
• You desire to develop leaders. You approach talent development, for yourself and your team, with a growth mindset. You believe no one is perfect, mistakes offer a learning experience, and everyone has the capacity to grow and exhibit mastery of challenges in their career.

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• 5+ years of hands on UX design experience as an effective, successful individual contributor
• 2+ years managing, leading, or supervising designers with the ability to provide mentorship, thought leadership, and guidance
• The ability to identify and drive opportunities to align design patterns and experiences across different product offerings.
• The ability to effectively work across organizational boundaries to define, manage, and prioritize work.
• Portfolio of UX-focused work samples across multiple form factors showing your process and approach to solving design challenges.
• Experience helping individuals and organizations understand and embrace the value of human-centered design, service design, and how they play a role in the overall business strategy.
• Proven ability to drive team deliverables and outcomes in a lean or agile environment.

Things that would put you over the top:

• You’re a photographer, either professional or amateur, or have experience in the photography industry.
• Working knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methods.
• Experience leading creative and holistic thinking across multiple business lines and device form factors.
• Experience managing the creation and implementation of a design system across multiple products.
• Business acumen showing a strong understanding of business goals, strategies and competitive pressures as a driver for UX Research Team practice and management.
• HFI or equivalent UX Certification

How the interview process will work:

• Intro call with our technical recruiter
• 1:1 interview with the Director of User Experience
• 1:1 interview with the Chief Product Officer
• 1-2 interviews with members of the UX Design team
• Cultural interview with our People team
• 1:1 interview with a couple members of the executive team

This position reports to our Director of User Experience, has direct reports, and is based anywhere.

Benefits

• Highly competitive compensation package
• Benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, and 401K with 4% company match
• A culture that promotes a healthy work-life balance including a flexible PTO plan
• This position is 100% remote